L &L Holding’s David Levinson dropped some details yesterday about the reinvention of 380 Madison Ave.

Levinson, speaking before brokers at the YM/WREA, said the firm won a beauty contest against seven other contenders and has been hired by ground owner RREEF to overhaul 380 Madison — what will become a 1 million square-foot building on the blockfront between East 46th and 47th streets.

The building was developed by Harold Uris and then redeveloped by Howard Ronson’s HRO International. RREEF bought the ground and Sheldon Solow owns the leasehold, which ends January 2014. Current tenant the United Nations is on track to leave early, Levinson said. Documents show options by the leaseholder to purchase the building have expired.

Levinson said, “380 is being re-imagined” because even if reskinned, “it would not be the forward-thinking building that would attract tenants.”

The biggest risk, he said, would be that “you put a ton of money into it and it’s just another glass-and-steel building in the Grand Central District. You have to deliver a trophy headquarters.”

They are working with architects KPF to literally take out floor slabs and add the removed floor area to the top, bringing more height and views. The engineering is very difficult, and Levinson has hired the Severud Associates team to work on it. One pencil rendering shows the base facade leaning out at an angle over the sidewalk.

It would be easier to tear it all down and rebuild, but the city previously downzoned areas of Manhattan. So if a building is completely torn down, the owner loses the ability to construct the same amount of space.

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.

According to a person with knowledge of the 24-story building, it needs significant work to address several shortcomings, including low ceilings, bulky heating and cooling convector units that hug the windows and block the building’s views and various outdated core systems such as the property’s elevators and HVAC.

With a city proposal to potentially rezone areas of Midtown in a way that would allow significantly larger buildings to be built there, 380 Madison Avenue could also be a candidate for a larger project in which the building would be demolished and replaced with a significantly bigger structure some sources said.

It probably would be a better idea to wait for the rezoning to go through and then take advantage of it with a full teardown and rebuild.

I agree. This is the same company behind the new 425 Park Avenue development, and they don't want to wait there either. But the 5 year freeze period before the rezoning can go into effect is a problem for some who want to act now.

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.

L&L Holding Co., which is transforming 425 Park Ave. with a well-received Norman Foster redesign, is launching a second, larger East Midtown metamorphosis.

By early 2017, gloomy 380 Madison Ave. will be reborn as 390 Madison — a tower bearing no resemblance to today’s Darth Vader-like hulk. Designed by KPF architects, it will be clad in reflective glass, taller and more slender at the top and largely reshaped to reallocate some of its lower-level space to new, upper floors.

On behalf of 380 Madison owner Clarion Partners, L&L is performing a feat that’s very difficult, but not impossible, under 1961 zoning rules — replacing an entire old building with one of the same size in terms of floor area. It won’t be a ground-up project, but an ingenious re-invention incorporating most of the original structure’s hidden bones.

Although 390 Madison will have just under 900,000 square feet — the same as at the empty current building — it will be unrecognizable as the same structure, as shown for the first time above. (By comparison, 425 Park Ave. has 650,000 square feet.)

In what might be the largest “re-massing” of a Manhattan building yet undertaken, the 291-foot tall, 24-story structure will grow to 373 feet in height and 32 stories. The highest portion will be set back and narrower than the current structure, affording better views.

“We are creating this 21st century building that maximizes light, fresh air and collaborative spaces in East Midtown, where it doesn’t exist,” said L&L chairman/CEO and co-founder David Levinson.

The relatively modern-looking, opaque blue-glass curtain wall of 380 Madison Ave. conceals low ceiling heights and antiquated systems. Its bulky, bottom-heavy massing dates from the 1950s, when it went up clad in brown brick.
The glass skin, which British developer Howard Ronson slapped on it in the 1980s, could not stave off galloping obsolescence within.

L&L’s transformation will replace opaque glass and underlying brick with an all-glass curtain wall of transparent, floor-to-ceiling windows and glass spandrels to mark separation of floors.

Two entire floor slabs at lower levels comprising nearly 100,000 square feet, and portions of others, will be removed.

But the “lost” space will be reallocated to eight new floors to be constructed atop the existing 24.

The high floors will boast a 13.5-foot “slab to slab” height, the new standard at projects such as 11 Times Square and 4 World Trade Center. Removal of slabs below will open up the volume to allow for 14.5-foot floor-to-ceiling heights on certain lower floors.

The re-massing will also make room for large outdoor terraces on setback floors as well as high-ceilinged interior spaces suitable for tenant cafés and other amenities. The project is aiming for LEED gold certification. Some 15,000 square feet of retail will include 25-foot ceiling heights.

The project is confidently proceeding with no tenants pre-signed. It aims to address East Midtown’s critical weakness. Despite its proximity to Grand Central Terminal and a wealth of glamorous hotels, stores and restaurants, the area is hobbled by relic office buildings that average 70 years old.

Rezoning the Vanderbilt Avenue corridor, now undergoing city review, would allow one major new planned skyscraper, One Vanderbilt, to go up and perhaps pave the way for rezoning the wider area later on.

But until then, companies requiring state-of-the-art new facilities are being chased south to the World Trade Center or west to Hudson Yards or Brookfield Place — as L’Oreal, Time Warner, Condé Nast, Media Math and Skadden Arps have done or are planning to do.

Remarkably, 390 Madison is to be built entirely as-of-right. It requires no public review, community board hearings, special permits, Landmarks Commission or Planning Department involvement or subsidies. It needs only Department of Buildings permits, many of which have already been issued.
The project exploits a rare loophole in 1961 zoning rules that forbade replacement of most East Midtown buildings of the time with ones of the same size. As at 425 Park Ave., L&L is tapping a little-used provision that allows a building to be redeveloped to the same size as the original — if at least 25 percent of the old structure is preserved.

That typically requires keeping some structural steel and has deterred other developers. But only 18 percent of 380 Madison will be dismantled, Levinson said.

He declined to discuss project costs. Industry sources said Clarion Partners’ total investment — including acquisition, “soft costs” and new construction — might approach as much as $1 billion. L&L has no equity in 390 Madison, but was tapped by Clarion to reconceive, lease and manage the moribund property.

Levinson wouldn’t discuss asking office rents either, except to say that “they would be about 25 percent less than new construction, for what is effectively new construction.” That might work out to an average $100 per square foot, depending on the floor and the amount of space leased.

The KPF design was largely conceived by Gene Kohn working with L&L. Douglas Hocking, a KPF principal, is the lead architect, while L&L’s Jeff Davis is the project construction manager.

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.

L&L Holding is doing the near impossible in Midtown by undertaking the transformation of a vacant, gloomy 380 Madison (left) into shiny, new 390 Madison (rendering)
while steering clear of zoning restrictions.

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.

Clarion Partners' 380 Madison Avenue was built in the 1950s out of brick and sheathed in a facade of opaque blue glass during the '80s. The combination of the two styles produced a building that is large, squat, and altogether dismal-looking, but now a complete makeover from L&L Holding Co. will transform the building—almost magically—into a light, modern tower of the type that will probably come to characterize Midtown East in a few years.

Using a loophole in the 1961 zoning rules that allows for a Midtown East building to be replaced with another building of the same size only if 25 percent of the original structure is preserved, L&L, with a design from architectural firm KPF, will be able to almost completely redo 380 Madison, which will be renamed 390 Madison Avenue, with no public review whatsoever. Technically, the vast majority of the original tower will remain, but the new version will be virtually unrecognizable with a curtain wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, glass spandrels, and 100,000 square feet from two lower floors removed and reused for eight new floors on top, taking the building from 24 to 32 stories.